The present invention relates to cooking appliances having cooking plates or xe2x80x9chot platesxe2x80x9d that are made removable by securing and releasing devices.
The technical sector of the invention is the field of xe2x80x9csmall household electrical appliancesxe2x80x9d.
The invention essentially applies to appliances of the grill, waffle-iron, or sandwich-toaster type. Such an appliance comprises two hot plates hinged together to define between them a space for receiving food to be cooked, each hot plate being heated by a respective electric heater element in contact with the plate.
Making such hot plates removable opens up possibilities for making multi-purpose appliances that can be transformed into sandwich toasters, waffle irons, or grills merely by changing the hot plates. For that purpose, the hot plates are held stationary inside shells by securing means that can be moved to release said plates and to interchange them. However, manipulating such means is impractical and inconvenient, and also involves the risk that the user might suffer burns. To mitigate that drawback, certain appliances are equipped with catch systems making them easier to use, but such systems are generally costly to make.
An object of the present invention is to mitigate the above-mentioned drawbacks by making it more practical to change the plates, with as few parts as possible, making it possible to reduce the manufacturing and assembly costs, while reducing the danger of burns.
This object is achieved with a cooking appliance comprising at least one shell, and at least one control button mounted to move relative to the shell, the shell incorporating a heater element and carrying a removable hot plate which is fixed to said heater element via at least one securing means, and which is releasable by moving said means. In the invention, the appliance further comprises at least one lever forming a crank-shaft assembly mounted to turn about an axis via which it is fixed to the shell, one portion of the lever co-operating with the control button and another portion driving the securing means when the control button is pushed and acts on the lever. The lever has a central body disposed along said axis, turning about said axis, and situated between the portions co-operating with the control button at one end, and driving the securing means constituted by a catch mounted to tilt about said axis at the other end.
In a preferred embodiment, the lever is a metal wire bent to constitute the portions co-operating with the control button at one end, and driving the catch at the other end, the two portions, together with the portion of the metal wire that interconnects them and that constitutes the central body of the lever, forming a crank-shaft assembly.
The result is a novel cooking appliance having hot plates that are made removable by a hot plate securing/releasing device which achieves the above-mentioned object by means of a sub-assembly made up of only three parts which correspond to a control button, a lever or a transmission, and a securing means for each plate, each securing means operating by means of a locking catch.
The control button, which is of ergonomic shape, is placed on the appliance so as to be practical to use, visible, and quite a long way away from the hot plates so as to avoid burns. It thus makes it possible to release the plates and to interchange them depending on the food that is to be prepared. The resulting cooking appliance is a multi-purpose appliance that can, for example, perform the functions of grills, waffle irons, sandwich toasters, etc.